I am a professor of sociology and gender studies at Middlebury College. My last book, American Plastic, was on why Americans take on large debts to get cosmetic surgery. My next book is on the marriage of capitalism and romance. I have written for a variety of publications including Salon and the Washington Post. I have blogged at Psychology Today, True/Slant and the Chronicle of HIgher Education.

'Sexy' Costumes Are Scary For Halloween

Much has been written about the “sluttification” of women’s and girls’ Halloween costumes. Have a costume idea, add the word “sexy” and take away most of the fabric and you will be ready to go.

Sexy Fire Fighter, Sexy Nurse, and even Sexy Nuns and iPhone costumes. It is not fully clear why this trend started, but when Google started tracking costume searches in 2004, “sexy” plus costume was a hot search and expanded exponentially through 2008. Although the volume of these searches has declined somewhat that probably has more to do with the assumption that a Halloween costume for women is, by definition, ”sexy.”

The question remains, however, why do women dress in hyper-sexualized ways on Halloween, a day meant to be “scary”?

The answer to sexy witches lies, perversely enough, in the virginal bride. Indeed, the point of being hyper-sexualized on Halloween is to be sexually pure the rest of the year.

In other words, certain women- particularly white, middle-class women- have been afforded the status of being sexually pure and innocent, real ladies. Other women- especially poor women and/or women of color- have been marked as hyper-sexualized and dirty.

Thus white, middle class women, especially college students and soccer moms, love to put on sexy, slutty costumes on Halloween. In this way, they mark themselves as sexual, but also sexually protected. No one would call your mom or daughter a “ho” on November 1st, but let’s face it, on October 31st she might just be dressed like one. In this way, being a Halloween Ho marks one as “really sexually pure” in the same way that men dressing up as women marks them as “really men.”

Still, just like when your man puts on high heels and pantyhose for the neighborhood costume party and you are struck by how he has more womanly legs than you do, so too does the whorish Halloween costume invite a category crisis. Suddenly your sweet young daughter or loving mother is a hyper-sexualized nurse in white leather hot pants sucking on a syringe full of liquid candy.

But if modern love is embedded in this annual ritual of making white women hyper-sexualized, it is also embedded in crossing race and class lines too. Indeed, often white women sexualize themselves through racial and class appropriation, like dressing up in a “sexy burka” costume, which sold out this year. Or how about a sexy “ghetto fab” wig?

Many groups are critical of the use of racial stereotypes, like the Ohio State STARS campaign that urges students to think twice before they buy a racially insensitive costume. But to separate the racial costumes from the sexualization of white women is to miss the way that race and gender are knotted up together in our culture.

White women have, at least since the Victorians, been imagined as sexually pure. Nonwhite women, whether African-American or Chinese-American, have been imagined as sexually available. That’s why when white women want to sexualize themselves they often do so with racialized costumes. There’s a reason there’s a sexy geisha costume and not a sexy soccer mom costume (although there are sexy soccer player costumes).

White women aren’t hyper-sexualized in our culture. Except on Halloween. And then being a white woman is scary.

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If I understand correctly, sex is scary? Poor “sexy” COLOURED women are dirty? The author is scared of sex and needs to spend some time with a dominatrix. And rich/middle class women are…pure? Take off the retard goggles. Also, you’re a racist.

Laura, I believe that you are looking much too deep into this idea. Women of all color associate any type of “dressing up”, including a night out on the town, with attempting to look sexy, so it makes sense that they would do the same on halloween. You also say that white women are looked at as sexually pure….maybe in the Victorian era or whatever bullshit ur talking about, but the fact is that ask any college guy across the country what race of girl is easiest to get under the covers and they will all say “white girls” they all know that white women are more promiscuous than the rest….do a study, go to any campus and ask…

with all your overpriced pieces of useless paper, i mean sociology degrees, and useless education and even being a woman yourself, you have no idea what you are talking about, become an engineer, or a doctor and do something for society instead of spreading ridiculous theories about peoples skin color

The reason there is a sexy geisha costume and not a sexy soccer mom costume has nothing to do with race. You should wikipedia geisha and read about their profession.

Comparing sexy Geisha to soccer mom makes about as much sense as saying there are brawny football players but no brawny data analyst costumes. It certainly doesn’t prompt a person to think that this is because football players are often black and data analysts are just assumed to be white.

This article is absolutely ridiculous…. plain old backwards. Really? white college girls are “pure and clean”? If anything, in North American culture, whenver one thinks of a hypersexualized, available girl, I am positive that most people would imagine a white girl. The idea behind dressing up in clothes of other cultures is bcs in Halloween, you’re supposed to dress AS SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT. What sense would it make if a middle eastern person dressed in middle eastern clothing during Halloween???

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the mainstreaming of porn aesthetics/imagery as being one of the drivers of “sexy” costumes. After all, where does our visual representation of hot nurses and scantily-clad cops come from in the first place?

Wow, this author is really out of touch with reality. Students wear those skimpy Halloween outfits because they’re going to a party to meet other students. Head into a college town on ANY weekend night and you’ll see the young women dressed up in similarly skimpy outfits, minus the furry ears and tails. They are adults, older than my parents were when they got married, so what’s wrong with acknowledging they are sexual beings? I’m glad they are comfortable with their bodies and don’t feel a need to hide their figures. They are going to parties in houses and bars, not trick-or-treating with the little kids in the cold, so they are well past the age where they need to consider a costume that keeps them warm, and bulky costumes are impractical for more than a couple of hours unless they plan to undress completely every time they need to use a restroom. Plenty of “sexy” costumes were worn even when I was in college, before today’s students were born, they just weren’t available as mass-produced costumes, but assembled from garments the students already owned or picked up in thrift shops.

STARS is not an Ohio State program, it is an Ohio University program. An an Ohio University alumnus, I find it highly frustrating how often the media gets these two school confused. Double check your sources.